Here’s a light-hearted story to finish up with, a real-life Chain Gang. 194 French prisoners will shortly set off on a special version of the Tour de France. They’ll be accompanied by 124 gaurds and fitness instructors. An article on the BBC website makes it clear that there will be no breakaways (!) and the… Read more

So, Chain Gang’s 2009 season is now underway – just. We have 4 guides working for us this summer, Pete McGee and Toby King in France, and Guido Dollert and Orlando Gensmantel in Italy. This year we also have the luxury of me and my brother, Mike Dugdale, on standby, able to fill in where… Read more

Last week, for the first time ever (I think), Exeter hosted a professional bike race. As part of a race programme called the ‘Tour Series’ Exeter held one of 10 city centre races to be held in the UK this summer. There are 10 professional teams, each of 5 riders, and although these aren’t the… Read more

Yesterday, Sunday May 24th, Dr Bike and I rode ‘The Tour of Wessex’. This is a 112-mile ride around Wessex. We were slightly worried before the event because 112 miles is a little outside our comfort zone – by about 70 miles! Come the day we joined up with 3 other mates, Richard Mould, Jerry… Read more

Last weekend I had the great pleasure of watching two of my neices complete the Ten Tors. Ten Tors is an annual event run by the Army on Dartmoor. Four hundred teams of six youngsters aged 14 to 20 have to complete a 2-day walk across Dartmoor. There are about 25 different routes, divided into… Read more

Spring time is an exciting time for cycling fans. It’s not all about the Tour de France, there are other bike races! Some of them last for a few days, some for as long as a week, but some of the most famous of all are one-day races. These include some of cycling’s most famous,… Read more

Last year on one of our Burgundy trips there was a heated debate around the dinner table in Châteauneuf on the subject of bike helmets. Châteauneuf, by the way, is amazing. Davide, an Israeli cyclist, said ‘It’s amazing, just amazing. I thought Loubressac was the most beautiful village I had ever seen, but it is… Read more

Somebody asked me recently whether the deepening recession might halt the recent runaway price increases of the top wines from Bordeaux and Burgundy. An interesting question. Doing a bit of research led me to a recent attempt to re-classify the 1855 classification of clarets. Let me recap briefly on what the 1855 Classification means. Officially… Read more

The last four days here in SouthWest England have been glorious. Sunny and warm. It’s starting to get a bit windy, but we’ve had a sneak preview of how glorious it can be to be out cycling in the summer. Of course, with the best will in the world, cycling in Devon is never going… Read more

What a shame, we’re looking for a new web developer after a bit of a spat. Over the last 20 years I’ve become fed up with technical people explaining why some technical reason means that a dog’s dinner is an acceptable marketing process. The answer is usually imagination, but my patience isn’t what it was… Read more

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